UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: The following program was taped before an audience of no one.

BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. Forget Barcelona, you're going to Bill-bao (ph). I'm Bill Kurtis, and here's your host, a man whose job today is to be funny about abortion. It's Peter Sagal.

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Thank you, Bill. And thank you, fake audience. I fake missed you. The TV show of the spring is "Severance," the creepy dystopian drama about going to the office, the perfect companion to our creepy dystopian reality - returning to the office. Later on, we're going to be talking to the star of that show, Adam Scott. But first, it's your turn. The number to call is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Now let's welcome our first listener contestant.

Hi, you're on WAIT, WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

DANIEL VENER: Hi. This is Daniel Vener (ph) calling from Houston, Texas.

SAGAL: Hey. How are things in Houston?

VENER: Things are excellent in Houston. Things are good.

SAGAL: What do you do there?

VENER: Yes. I'm a third-year psychiatry resident at Baylor College of Medicine.

SAGAL: Wow. I am going to guess, just looking around at everything, that psychiatry is a growth field right now.

VENER: You know, there doesn't seem to be a lack of recruitment.

SAGAL: No, no. I'm sure they're already - you're not even in practice yet, and they're probably lining up outside your door.

Well, Daniel, welcome to the show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, it's a comedian whose Edinburgh Fringe Festival show will be at Assembly this August. It's Emmy Blotnick.

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SAGAL: Next, you can see him live at the Algonquin Commons Theatre in Ottawa, Canada, on May 20. All of his tour dates are over on mazjobrani.com. It's Maz Jobrani.

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MAZ JOBRANI: (Singing) Daniel is healing people in Houston.

SAGAL: And you can see her June 11 in Waukegan, Ill., at the Genesee Theatre, and her new HBO special, "Cats, Cops And Stuff," is now out as an album everywhere. It's Paula Poundstone.

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SAGAL: Daniel, you're going to play Who's Bill This Time? Bill Kurtis, of course, is going to read you three quotations from this week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain two of them, you'll win our prize - any voice from our show you may choose in your voicemail. You ready to go?

SAGAL: All right. Here is your first quote.

SAGAL: That was a sign carried at protests this week after a decision leaked that what ruling would soon be overturned?

SAGAL: POLITICO published a draft Supreme Court opinion on Monday that would, if enacted, overrule Roe. The draft opinion by Samuel Alito is so angry it reads like the Unabomber's manifesto but with footnotes. And it does not help that Justice Alito wrote the entire 96-page opinion with letters cut out of magazines. So on Monday night of this week, we found out that the Supreme Court was about to set women's rights back 50 years. But at the very same moment, at the Met Gala, Billie Eilish was wearing a gown made from sustainable materials. So let's call it a wash.

POUNDSTONE: It was sort of ironic that we got that one piece of terrible, terrible news while people were at this useless event.

SAGAL: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's nice to watch. It's a nice distraction from terrible news.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah. Absolutely. It's like if there was little tchotchke keyrings at, like, the Auschwitz gift shop.

SAGAL: You went right there, Paula. All right. Now, if Roe is, in fact, overturned, it's going to create a ton of traffic from states that instantly ban abortion to those who don't. So get ready for a lot of signs right by the border for Crazy Dave's Fireworks and Competent Dave's Women's Health Services.

POUNDSTONE: I will only go to Competent Dave. I just want to say that right now.

SAGAL: Yeah, I think that's wise.

BLOTNICK: If there's an expert Dave, I would see him, but...

POUNDSTONE: I think Competent Dave's good enough. Don't push your luck.

SAGAL: Now, we should all - this is a draft, of course - expect the actual opinion next month after Justice Alito polishes his material by performing it at smaller clubs around the country right after the headliner, who is absolutely going to be Louis C.K.

JOBRANI: I wish - you know, this is the one show where Will Smith should show up and slap the guy. I mean, that would be great.

POUNDSTONE: Right now, Alito's yelling to his wife, how do you spell barefoot?

SAGAL: All right. Here is your next quote.

KURTIS: It's worse than kids. It's an animal.

SAGAL: That was a woman named Ashley Jean. She was talking about people bringing the pets they bought during the pandemic where?

SAGAL: No, no, not at all. Remember, people bought them because they were working at home all day and were lonely.

SAGAL: Exactly - to work.

SAGAL: People are returning to the office, and all the folks that bought pets during the pandemic are demanding that they be allowed to bring those pets to work. And if your office does not end up smelling much worse because of this, you have COVID.

SAGAL: It'll be so cute. At the bottom of your little cubicle, you can put a little litter cubicle.

BLOTNICK: Yeah, I actually - it's in my contract here that my dog has to take all my phone calls so while we're doing the show. It's nice that he has a job, is what I'm trying to say.

SAGAL: Really? Does your dog place your calls too, like, a Hollywood agent? Please hold for Emmy.

BLOTNICK: Oh, yes, yes. He can work the board really well.

SAGAL: (Laughter) Really - it's weird. We are going from working at home to being home at work. It's a real short walk from bringing your pet to work to bringing your kids to work so you can ignore them there, too.

JOBRANI: We got a pandemic puppy. I had never had a pet before because I was born in Iran.

JOBRANI: Yeah. In Iran, dogs are just not as big as they are here. So when I was a kid - when I was, like, 5 years old or so, I asked my dad for a dog, and he got me a rooster. So I had a rooster in Iran.

SAGAL: I'm sorry. What? You asked your father for a dog, and he comes home with a rooster?

JOBRANI: No, the culture wasn't a dog culture. The culture was the kid wants an animal. Let's just get him any animal. It'll do.

BLOTNICK: What was the rooster's name?

JOBRANI: His name was Raheem (ph) - Raheem the rooster.

JOBRANI: Yeah, so - but, yeah, but now I got a dog, and now I take her wherever I go. And I find out...

SAGAL: Do you, in fact, do your standups - do you take your dogs with you on the road and on stage with you?

JOBRANI: Not on the road. I leave her here. But now when I walk around town - because standups are - by day, we have nothing to do. So we roam the streets going store to store and finding out what stores welcome your dogs and what stores don't. Like, coffee shops welcome your dogs. Grocery stores don't welcome the dog.

POUNDSTONE: So you can only go into coffee shops. So your family has nothing to eat but coffee for the last - how long?

SAGAL: Extremely expensive scones - that's it. That's all Maz's family has.

POUNDSTONE: The kids are very skinny but really agitated.

JOBRANI: No. Listen, the kids, the kids - because of the coffee, they are, like - they're supposed to be in fifth grade. They're already in college.

SAGAL: All right. Here, sir, is your last quote.

KURTIS: Perfect timing for a "Fast And Furious" marathon.

SAGAL: That was PC magazine commenting on the news that it will soon be legal in the U.K. to do what while you are behind the wheel of a self-driving car?

SAGAL: Under proposed legislation in Great Britain, it will be legal to watch TV while the car drives itself. What a nightmare this will be. Do you know how annoying it is, like, when "Bridgerton" is just getting all steamy, and then some dumb pedestrian crashes through your windshield?

POUNDSTONE: Oh, this just sounds so unbelievably stupid to me. And I think - I mean, really, prior to Boris Johnson, I always thought of U.K. people as being, you know, intellectually superior to us.

SAGAL: It's only the accent. They just sound that way.

BLOTNICK: Have you seen the signs that are on their highways that are, like, in the little sort of Lite-Brite text? Do you know what I'm talking about? - when they put up, like, a big electronic highway sign?

SAGAL: Yeah, the Lite-Brite type. I know what you mean.

BLOTNICK: Their signs say don't phone whilst driving.

BLOTNICK: It just sounds so much smarter. Whilst? No...

POUNDSTONE: Is there an arrow with it? Because that's a Shakespeare play they're pointing you towards.

POUNDSTONE: They're pointing you towards a theatre where they're doing the play - that Shakespeare play don't phone whilst driving. It was a great, great play. Yeah, I don't think people are already going to do that anyways. Really? People are going to be using autonomous cars and not focusing at all on what the car's doing?

SAGAL: I think so. Isn't that the whole point?

JOBRANI: That's what they do. And I think this is going to make the next James Bond very boring because he's just going to be sitting in his car watching a movie the whole time.

SAGAL: And it cuts back to James, and it's like...

JOBRANI: Moneypenny, I'll be there in a minute. Let me finish the end of "The Batman."

POUNDSTONE: Bond, are you still watching?

SAGAL: Bill, how did Daniel do on our quiz?

KURTIS: What a good start. Let's build on Daniel's successful with a perfect score.

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SAGAL: Hey, Daniel. Well done.

SAGAL: And, hey, good luck with the career. We'll need you.

VENER: I appreciated that. Look forward to seeing you.

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RIHANNA: (Singing) Shut up and drive, drive, drive.

SAGAL: Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Maz, a professor in New Zealand says he has been given a very rare thing. It's a nearly 400-year-old Bible, specifically one of the 20 in the world known as a wicked Bible. Right? And these very few remaining Bibles are called the wicked Bible because they contain what typo in the Ten Commandments?

JOBRANI: Oh, in the Ten Commandments - I know. Instead of thou shalt not kill, it's thou shalt kill.

SAGAL: You're right, except instead of killing, it's adultery.

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SAGAL: It says in the Ten Commandments, thou shalt commit adultery. The wicked - or, let's face it, the fun Bible was produced in the 1600s, and once the error was discovered, most of the copies were burned. But not before a lot of people snuck in, some coveting their neighbors' wives. You know, it's like, you told me to, God.

BLOTNICK: I thought they were called the wicked Bibles because they're from Boston. I was just hoping.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah. It's a wicked (inaudible) Bible.

SAGAL: It is. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, historians say that it was a mistake, obviously, in the print shop. What the printer meant to have it say was much more specific. Thou shalt commit adultery next weekend with Susan on a work trip.

JOBRANI: They had Susans back then?

SAGAL: Yeah, of course they had Susans. We've always had - there's a Susan in the Bible.

JOBRANI: Is there a Susan in the Bible?

SAGAL: Yeah. There's a Susan in the Bible.

POUNDSTONE: She was so lazy.

SAGAL: When you think about it, back then, people who worked, I mean, at the beginning of printed, you know, books, people who worked in the printing presses had a tremendous amount of power because you could print whatever you wanted. What were people going to do, Google it to double check? You know, and Jesus sayeth, everyone be nice to Gary.

JOBRANI: By the way, you would think that, like, whoever brought that to the printer would be like, look, if you mess up these other pages, it's OK. But these 10 lines...

SAGAL: This is really important.

JOBRANI: Really need you to - just make sure you put the - I need the nots. I need you to put the - you got it? And the guy's like, I totally got it.

SAGAL: Coming up, you better floss before our Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play. We'll be back in a minute with more on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME! from NPR.

KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We are playing this week with Paula Poundstone, Emmy Blotnick and Maz Jobrani. And here again is your host. You can keep your Met Gala. I want my Peter Sagal-a (ph). It's Peter Sagal.

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SAGAL: Thank you, Bill. Right now, it's time for the WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air. Hi. You're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

KIERAN: Hi. I'm Kieran from Philadelphia.

SAGAL: Hey, Kieran from Philadelphia. How are you?

KIERAN: I'm doing great. How are you, Peter?

SAGAL: I'm doing great. One of the ways in which I think I have grown and matured as a person over the last couple of decades is that I've grown to love Philadelphia. It is a wonderful place. What do you do there?

KIERAN: I work for a large tree company. And basically, I fly around the country talking about trees and learning about them and then bringing the good word about tree care back to my company about what I learned.

SAGAL: Right. Right. And what sort of things do you do to the trees? I mean, your tree care - like, you trim them and stuff or do you, like, plant them?

KIERAN: Mostly pruning. And mostly it's keeping them away from power lines, actually.

SAGAL: How do you, like, keep them away from power lines? You just point at to power line and say, no, don't touch that? The tree's like, oh, I'm sorry.

KIERAN: Yeah. Sometimes you go up there, you're holding a fork. You know, you just got to tell them what not to do.

SAGAL: No, no. Oh, no. There's a fork in the branch. Take it away from it. Oh, no. Kieran, welcome to the show. You're going to play the game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what's Karen's topic?

SAGAL: Nobody likes going to the dentist except for those weirdos who actually floss. Well, this week, we heard about a way life at the dentist's office is about to get a little bit better. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Pick the one who's telling the truth. You'll win the WAIT WAIT-er of your choice on your voicemail. Ready to play?

SAGAL: All right. First, let's hear from Maz Jobrani.

JOBRANI: Everyone knows that the worst part of going to the dentist is the unbearable sound of the drill. Well, inspired by the app Cameo where you can hire celebrities to send you birthday videos, a new company has created Drilleo (ph), where you can hire celebs to whisper words of encouragement through technology that basically injects their voice into your ears from the inside while you sit in the dentist's chair looking for a calm voice to get you through the root canal? Try hiring Christopher Walken. (Imitating Christopher Walken) You know, now that you're finally doing this procedure, your teeth are going to feel like a million bucks.

Or try Mick Jagger. (Imitating Mick Jagger) I can't get no satisfaction. Speaking of satisfaction, your breath is unsatisfactory.

Drilleo's has gotten mixed reviews, with one patient saying, at first, it was fun to hear Johnny Depp, but then he started reading me his texts, and it just got weird.

SAGAL: Drilleo, of the technology that basically injects the comforting voice of celebrities into your head while you have dental work done. Your next story of an improvement at the dentist comes from Paula Poundstone.

POUNDSTONE: COVID-19 created such fear and anxiety for the clientele of the dental offices of brothers Sam (ph) and Wyeth Hall (ph). It almost shut the doors on their dental practice, but a wild idea saved the day and the smiles of thousands. My brother Wyeth is the idea guy, says older brother Sam. He came up with the idea to lean into people's fear. Right? So the brothers launched an unusual practice. I was in the dentist chair with my eyes closed, said full set of X-ray and cleaning patient, Lily Glass. And I felt something heavy on my chest. I opened my eyes and a python's head shoots out from under my bib. I almost had an accident in the chair. I made the appointment online, and it was such a confusing website. I did check python, but I thought it was an unusual toothpaste flavor. I just wanted a beautiful smile. Soon they started offering their patients a wider choice of animals. I never thought of a moose as scary, says crown recipient Lissa Negron (ph). But boy, they are huge, and they don't like the sound of that spit sucking thing. I finally decided to just drool.

SAGAL: Dentist practice that uses the fear factor by distracting you from the pain by scaring you with wild animals. And the last story that'll make you say dental dam comes from Emmy Blotnick.

BLOTNICK: I think we can all agree there's nothing worse than when you're a pediatric dentist and your child patient is trying to physically fight you. Thankfully, Japanese scientists are solving this problem with a new training tool. And yes, it is a robot, a child robot called Pedia Roid who is programmed to fight the dentist. It can move its arms, legs and eyes to mimic several human emotions, including anxiety, fear and, of course, resistance. Its movements include sneezing, coughing, vomiting, writhing, flapping and convulsing. That little bastard kicked my glasses off, said one dentist, who dared to step in the ring with Pedia Roid. There's nothing creepy about this, said the developer. Once you, the human dentist, can conquer Pedia Roid, the robot child patient, then you are ready for hand-to-mouth combat with a human child patient.

SAGAL: All right. Here are your choices. Something is going to make going to the dentist a little bit better. From Maz, Drilleo, a service that lets celebrities talk to you while you're having your dental work done. From Paula Poundstone, a dental practice that has introduced frightening wild animals into their rooms so as to distract you from the pain. Or from Emmy Blotnick, a new training program that trains dentists to deal with, shall we say, obstreperous children with a robot called the Pedia Roid. Which of these is the real story of an improvement in dentistry?

KIERAN: I am uncomfortable to say that my guess is the Pedia Roid.

SAGAL: Well, wait a minute, Paula. It's his choice. You can't talk him out of it. It's against the rules. You've chosen Emmy's story. And we spoke to someone who had a perspective on the real story.

ASLI YILMAZ: The robot has voice recognition. So even if it's a little freaky looking, I think it's a cool idea.

SAGAL: That was Columbia College of Dental Medicine student Asli Yilmaz (ph) talking about the robot child which, so far, she does not have to work with yet. Congratulations, Kieran. You got it right. You picked the correct story. It was Emmy's about that creepy robot. You have won a point for Emmy. And, of course, you've also won our prize - yay - the voice of anyone you might like from the show.

KIERAN: Thank you so much.

SAGAL: Thank you so much for playing. And good luck with those trees.

KIERAN: Thanks. Have a good one.

ALAN MENKEN: (Singing) When I was younger, just a bad little kid. My mama noticed funny things like shooting puppies with a BB gun. I'd poison guppies, and when I was done..

SAGAL: And now the game where we interview people who are very well-known about things about which they know very little. Adam Scott became famous for, among other things, starring in one of the greatest workplace comedies of all time, "Parks And Recreation." More recently, he has starred in another very different hit workplace comedy, "Severance," on Apple TV. We would explain that show, but we can't. So we actually asked Adam to come on and do it himself. Adam Scott, welcome back to WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

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ADAM SCOTT: Thank you, Peter. So happy to be here.

SAGAL: It's a real pleasure to have you. I have been absolutely rapt watching "Severance." My wife and I, at the end of the day - we have a toddler, so at the end of the day, we're quite tired, and all we want to do is go to bed. But then one of us looks at the other and says, another episode of "Severance"? And we manage because that's - it was very compelling. For people who haven't seen it, it's on Apple Plus (ph), the TV service. Can you briefly explain it?

SCOTT: Yeah. It's a show that takes place at a company named Lumon, one of those kind of omnipresent companies. It's been around for a long time that, like, you're eating your morning cereal, and you're looking at the box, and you realize the same company that make my light bulbs make my cereal. It's one of those giant companies. Anyway, my character works at Lumon, and Lumon has this technology where they insert a chip into your head, and it kind of bifurcates your life into two sections. One is at work, and while you're at work, you have no idea what you do in the outside world or who you are. And then when you leave work, you cross the threshold, and the chip is deactivated. And you're back out in your everyday life, and you have no idea what you do.

SAGAL: To my knowledge, you've never had an office job. You've only played people with office jobs on TV.

SAGAL: Yes. So did you have to, like, as the classic, you know, method actor research, actually go and work as an office drone for a while to understand what this would be like?

SCOTT: Well, for all intents and purposes, I have worked in an office because it certainly feels like it. The computer works, and there's ink in the pens.

SCOTT: And we sit around all day and joke with each other until they turn the camera on, and then we say our lines. And then the rest of the day, we're - which is sort of like working in an office. You just try and sneak in time to screw around with your friends.

SAGAL: The most realistic thing is, of your day, sitting in your chair, you're only working for a few minutes.

SCOTT: Then the boss walks in, and you pretend to be working, like when the camera turns on.

SAGAL: We had another question about it, which is - a lot of the show is you and the other actors walking great distances down hallways.

SAGAL: And we wanted to know, did you, like, actually create a good, you know, three-mile-long warren of hallways somewhere in a set? Or did you just do the thing where you walk down the same hallway, call cut, walk back, and then walk down the same hallway again?

SCOTT: No, they built an enormous amount of hallway. We - like, that opening, the - one of the opening shots of the show is me just walking for a full few minutes without stopping. And in order to get to the office set, you would have to walk through these hallways that they had built. But they were constantly changing the hallways around and moving stuff depending on what we were shooting. So, no joke, 70% of the time, I would get lost in these hallways because they all look exactly the same, too. So you would hit a dead end, and you would just have to call out for someone to come find you and bring you to the set because there is no way - and I didn't want anyone to think I was late, so I would just yell.

SAGAL: So just all of a sudden, your voice would emerge from this labyrinth? Hello. It's Adam. I can't find you. And they'd have to send a PA to find Adam...

SAGAL: So one last thing - and a little behind the scenes. We were talking about you. We were very excited to have you back on the show. We are all fans of "Severance," as I think is clear. But one of our producers said, of course we're going to ask him about this and sent around "The Greatest Event In Television History."

SAGAL: It's a making-of video. And the video is - the thing that you make is you and Jon Hamm completely recreate, shot for shot, the credits sequence for the relatively obscure '80s kind of casual detective show "Simon & Simon."

SCOTT: Yeah. That was a waste of time.

SAGAL: How in the - why in the - of all the ways to spend your valuable and presumably profitable time, how in the world did you come up with that?

SCOTT: I think Jon and I were just emailing each other YouTube videos one night of different credit sequences from when we were growing up in the '80s. And I just had the idea in the moment, like, what if we recreate this? And he was like, I'm in. And then a month or so later, I took the cruel acceptance of a casual invitation and told him that we had gotten some money together and were ready to recreate it. And so we actually did it. We found original locations and wardrobe and props. And, I mean, it's deeply dumb, but I really love them. I'm really proud of them. And they were so hard to make. It was so hard.

SAGAL: What is the point? That's - I mean, because we watch this thing, and as you say, I mean, presumably, when they made "Simon & Simon," they had all these episodes that they could take clips from and put them into the credits sequence.

SAGAL: Great. You had to actually start from scratch. For a three-second segment of whatever, you had to put in the production time, money to get to this location, do the makeup, whatever else you needed, just for those 3 seconds.

SAGAL: And what is the reward here, Mr. Scott?

SCOTT: That you bring it up 10 years later on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

SAGAL: (Laughter) That's good enough. Well, Adam Scott, it is great talking to you again, and we have asked you here this time to play a game we're calling...

KURTIS: With this ring, I Thee Wed.

SAGAL: So we were talking about "Severance," the show that you star in. So we thought we'd ask you, in contrast, about people uniting, three questions about engagements and weddings. Answer 2 out of 3 questions correctly. You'll win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice from our show of their choice on their voicemail. Bill, who is Adam Scott playing for?

KURTIS: Stan Needham (ph) of Boston, Massachusetts.

SAGAL: All right, here, sir, is your first question. Gifts are an important part of wedding ceremony, as I'm sure you know. When Meghan Markle married Prince Harry, her nephew gave them, what? - A, a membership in the dating app Bumble because, quote, "you might need it soon;" B, a singing Billy Bass program to play "God Save the Queen;" or C, a newly developed marijuana strain called Markle Sparkle?

SCOTT: Wow. I was sure that the third one was going - not going to be absurd. I would choose the singing Bass.

SAGAL: No, it was actually a newly developed marijuana strain.

SCOTT: No way. That's cool.

SAGAL: Remember, she's American. Her nephew is a marijuana grower in Oregon. There you go, Markle Sparkle. No problem.

SAGAL: Because, A, you have two more chances and, B, the whole thing is silly. Engagements ceremonies can sometimes be rather elaborate, as with the case of a Russian gentleman named Alexi Barkov (ph), who got his girlfriend to say yes after doing what? - A, re-enacting word for word each of the four weddings in the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral;" B, writing her an entire musical, complete with eight numbers, the musical being called "We're Not Getting Any Younger;" or C, faking his own death in a terrible traffic accident only to leap up covered in fake blood to pop the question?

SCOTT: I wish it was number three, but I have a feeling it's - I have a feeling it's number one, the "Four Weddings and a Funeral." You know what? Just because I have faith in this gentleman, I'm going to say number three, the traffic accident, although I have a feeling it's number one.

SAGAL: Yes, that's pretty good.

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SAGAL: So what he did was he - this is all true. He said, oh, please meet me here for a lunch date or whatever it might have been. And she showed up and what should she find? But the horrible scene of a traffic accident crushed cars, police, ambulances. And there lying in the middle of the road is her beloved boyfriend covered in blood? And she's terrified and horrified. She thinks she's lost everything. And he leaps up, falls to his knee and says, please marry me. And amazingly, she said, yes.

POUNDSTONE: That is big red flag right there, I think.

SAGAL: Right there. Right there.

SCOTT: Can't wait to hear what they did on the honeymoon.

SAGAL: (Laughter) All right, you have one more chance. And interestingly enough, this just happened this last week. As you know, a lot of people do engagements, proposals in public places and have someone film it and put it on social media. This one just happened this last week in India. It did not go well, probably because the hopeful groom proposed where? - A, in a divorce court right after the judge had declared their prior marriage dissolved; B, in a McDonald's just as his beloved was ordering at the counter; Or C, outside a burning building after he had set the fire causing the evacuation.

SCOTT: Oh, geez. Number three. Number three.

SAGAL: No, I'm afraid it was B in the McDonald's.

JOBRANI: I like Adam's choice of number three.

JOBRANI: I think somewhere this has happened.

SCOTT: And think about it. If you're an arson, if that's something that's in your heart and you can't control yourself. You just start fires.

SCOTT: That's the most romantic gesture possible.

SCOTT: Because you're doing the thing you love or the person you love.

POUNDSTONE: Plus, you'll have that time while you're in jail to really test the relationship.

SCOTT: Really see this - the stuff that you need for longevity.

POUNDSTONE: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. You know, can you, you know, kiss through that Plexiglass thing and still keep the flame alive, so to speak?

SCOTT: That's right. That's right.

SAGAL: Bill, how did Adam Scott do on our quiz this time?

KURTIS: Well, Adam got 1 out of 3, but don't worry, Adam. You'll soon sever it from your thoughts.

SCOTT: The great Bill Kurtis.

SAGAL: Adam Scott stars in "Severence" on Apple TV. I cannot recommend this TV show enough. It is creepy and great and compelling. Adam Scott, thank you so much for joining us on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME. It is an absolute pleasure whenever we get the chance to talk to you. Thank you so much.

SCOTT: Thanks, you guys. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

SCOTT: All right. Take care.

SAGAL: In just a minute, we weave a tangled web in our Listener Limerick Challenge. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to join us in the air. We'll be back in a minute with more of WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME from NPR.

KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We are playing this week with Maz Jobrani, Paula Poundstone and Emmy Blotnick. And here again is your host, a man who also always forgets what happens at work, Peter Sagal.

SAGAL: Thank you, Bill. In just a minute, Bill wins his rhyme-ary (ph) election in our Listener Limerick Challenge game. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924.

Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Emmy, one IT firm in India is offering a new benefit for its employees. What?

SAGAL: Really? After two and a half years locked inside, that's what you think would be an enticing benefit?

SAGAL: Actually, you're very close. If - the idea is if they can't really make you want to come to work, they can try to give you someone to go home to.

SAGAL: How sexist. No, more legitimate than that.

BLOTNICK: Oh, misters. Sorry. I'm just going to keep (laughter) - keep messing this up.

SAGAL: No, this is a service that people sign up for or get an app to help them with it, but they're offering it as a...

SAGAL: Yeah, a dating service.

SAGAL: Businesses are still feeling the effects everywhere of the Great Resignation. Employees are leaving their jobs in hopes of finding a company where the health care plan is more than just help yourself to whatever's left in the first aid kit over there. But this IT firm in India thinks they've solved that problem by offering one thing that's usually missing from work - a dating service. Because who wouldn't want to tell their kids, well, your mother and I met when Stan (ph) from HR said that we matched on 73 compatibility vectors?

JOBRANI: What's their tagline, we'll get you paid and get you laid?

SAGAL: That could work. The company says they're working with professional matchmakers to find employees spouses. But really, do you want your employer to know your personal enthusiasms? Well, I'm looking for someone who shares my interests in faking illnesses and stealing office supplies.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah, someone who enjoys someone who doesn't always follow through and tends to be late.

Maz, we've been told that we have to get back to the office because in-person meetings are so much more productive than virtual ones. Well, it is true. On average, according to a new study, an in-person meeting generates how many more ideas than meeting on Zoom?

JOBRANI: Wow. In-person's going to get you five more ideas.

SAGAL: No, not that good.

JOBRANI: Oh, one more idea.

SAGAL: One more idea. In-person meetings produce one more idea than virtual ones. And that idea is, we should probably all get tested now. The study finds that in-person interactions prompt people to pitch more creatively than they would otherwise, but not that much more creatively. And you know that one idea is not going to make work better. It's going to be, like, how about Crazy Tie Tuesdays, or let's all bring our pets to work now?

BLOTNICK: Or what if HR gave us mistresses?

SAGAL: There's an idea, Emmy.

SAGAL: This meeting was totally worth it.

POUNDSTONE: But you're - but wait a minute. You have to do that on a percentage basis, because if it's one more idea, OK. But what if most of your meetings came up with zero ideas or only one idea? In which case it's, you know - what is it? - 100% better?

SAGAL: You're right, actually. Yeah.

JOBRANI: I think the in-person extra idea is someone going, should we end this thing now? Is the meeting over?

SAGAL: It is - you know, everybody says you have to go back to the office because interactions with co-workers is where our best ideas come from, and it's true. I've only been back in the office with my co-workers for a couple of weeks and already had a great idea. We should all go back to working from home.

POUNDSTONE: You know, Peter, your co-workers listen to this show.

POUNDSTONE: They're here right now. My gosh, I'm so embarrassed.

SAGAL: ...At a museum in Paris - one of these...

SAGAL: ...Modern works of art - consisted of a blue jacket hanging there, with pockets stuffed with postcards - at least until last week, when a woman not only stole this jacket, but did what?

POUNDSTONE: She stole the jacket and wore it around the museum.

SAGAL: Well, she - she's not going to wear it. Not with sleeves that long.

POUNDSTONE: She stole the jacket and shortened the sleeves?

SAGAL: Yes, she had it altered.

SAGAL: The artwork at this museum in Paris was this blue jacket hanging on the wall. And that prompted many viewers to say, what a fascinating comment on capitalism in the early 21st century, and one 72-year-old French woman to say, wow, free jacket. So she walked out with the jacket in her bag, and she took it to a tailor to have the sleeves shortened so it would fit better on her frame. Police caught the woman a few days later when she came back to the museum, presumably to check out the new pants exhibit.

JOBRANI: That reminds me the time they stole the "Mona Lisa" and they took it to Kinko's and shrunk it down to wallet size.

SAGAL: Yes, exactly. Why not? Something more portable.

SAGAL: The woman admitted to taking the jacket, but she says she did not realize it was art. You know, just a standard giveaway where a museum hangs one jacket in the middle of a wall, in a gallery, under a spotlight, behind a rope, for whoever wants it.

JOBRANI: It would have been funny if she left, like, a - you know those tickets they give you for your jackets? - if she actually left the ticket and she honestly thought - she's like, this is my jacket. And she just left the ticket (laughter).

SAGAL: Oh, wow, they hung it over here. That was very sloppy of them.

BLOTNICK: And someone made the sleeves all long. That's weird.

SAGAL: And someone stuffed it with postcards and put a little label on the wall explaining what it is. That's so weird.

(SOUNDBITE OF LOU BUSCH AND HIS ORCHESTRA'S "COOL")

SAGAL: Coming up, it's Lightning Fill in the Blank. But first, it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924, or click the Contact Us link on our website, waitwait.npr.org. Also, come see us in San Francisco, May 26 and 27; in Philly, June 30; or at Wolf Trap outside Washington, D.C., August 25 and 26. And the WAIT WAIT stand-up comedy tour is back, kicking off in Salt Lake City, June 24. Tickets and info about all of that and more at nprpresents.org.

Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

BECKY: Hello. How are y'all?

SAGAL: I'm fine. Who's this?

BECKY: This is Becky (ph). I am from Bostwick, Ga.

SAGAL: Bostwick, Ga. And I'm going to guess, from the way you addressed us as y'all a moment ago, that you're actually from Georgia.

BECKY: I am. I'm kind of from North Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Georgia - back and forth several times.

SAGAL: So you're both Southern and indecisive.

BECKY: You know what? I am extremely indecisive (laughter).

SAGAL: I love it. Well, Becky, welcome to the show. Bill Kurtis, right here, is going to read you three news-related limericks with the last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly in two of the limericks, you'll be a winner. Ready to play?

SAGAL: Here's your first limerick.

KURTIS: Chicagwa's unfiltered. Oh, crap. Our cans are an honest thirst trap. We'll be selling a lot of Lake Michigan's water. We are canning it straight from the...

SAGAL: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is canning the city's tap water and putting it in stores across the city. It is a genius move for her upcoming reelection campaign where she's running against a guy who - this is true - is giving away free gas regularly all over the city. Because obviously, the best way to beat somebody giving away something that now costs five bucks a gallon is by giving away something that's free if you lean over a faucet. The water, canned water here in Chicago, is called Chicagwa - emphasis on the wa (ph)?

POUNDSTONE: That doesn't sound yummy.

SAGAL: Well, you know, the idea is Chicago's tap water is very good. It comes straight out of Lake Michigan, which is right over there, and it's very nice. You know, they take all the fish out first before they give it to you. It's quite tasty. If Chicagwa is successful, New Orleans has announced a plan to sell Hurricanes made from the spilled drinks on Bourbon Street and Los Angeles will sell their famous water source - nothing.

SAGAL: Here is your next limerick.

KURTIS: In Cambridge, there's change in the air. They're endowing a full salon chair. They'll address brush defiance with tensile strength science. They've detangled a 5-year-old's...

SAGAL: In a study that makes me think, huh, maybe I could be a scientist, a Harvard scientist has scientifically figured out the best way to untangle your kid's hair. After extensive computer modeling, a professor - who is a MacArthur Genius Grant winner - working with a team of scientists, including another MacArthur Genius Grant winner, found the trick is to start at the bottom of the tangled hair with very short strokes and make the strokes longer as you work your way up.

SAGAL: That's it. That's the solution.

SAGAL: The best brains on the planet had to work for literally years to come up with that.

POUNDSTONE: Wow. I knew that already, by the way.

SAGAL: Well, I was about to say...

POUNDSTONE: I don't want to brag.

SAGAL: ...Every single parent with a child with long hair has already figured this out. So congratulations - everyone is a Harvard scientist now.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah. Are you guys coming to my graduation?

SAGAL: From Harvard for figuring that out?

POUNDSTONE: Yeah, yeah. I'm tearing up right now. I never imagined that I would be a Harvard graduate, but this is really beautiful.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah, I think I figured it out, maybe, on my own hair. Certainly on my dog's hair. Yeah.

JOBRANI: Start from the bottom and go - so these guys were doing this, I'm guessing, because they cured cancer, and then they just - so then they said, now we should go detangle hair.

SAGAL: Yeah, pretty much. There's nothing else to be done.

SAGAL: You know, so why don't we cure - actually, what happened is, as you can imagine, this guy had a daughter - still does. She's an adult now. But when she was a child, he would try to brush her hair. And she would say, stop, Daddy, you're fired. So he devoted his significant brainpower to it. And they did mathematical modeling and geometry in three dimensions and computer simulations. And they figured out - just start brushing at the bottom, short strokes, and then just make it longer and longer.

BLOTNICK: Yeah. I mean, imagine doing all of that instead of talking to your daughter.

JOBRANI: (Laughter) That's why he was...

POUNDSTONE: Honey, Daddy has to go to the laboratory.

BLOTNICK: He's got to figure out how to get gum out, and there's no way it's peanut butter.

SAGAL: Here's your last limerick.

KURTIS: The gluttonous knights, kings and queens weren't mere roast meat machines. They balanced their beeves with helpings of leaves. The nobles were eating their...

SAGAL: A new scientific analysis of medieval skeletons has found that kings and commoners alike mainly ate vegetables and bread. So those enormous, like, turkey legs that you get at Medieval Times - completely inaccurate. But the bottomless Pepsi - still very authentic.

JOBRANI: "Game Of Thrones" and all these shows would be very different if instead of a big turkey leg, they were holding a big head of cauliflower...

JOBRANI: ...And just chewing away at it. Yeah.

SAGAL: Bill, how did Becky do on our quiz?

KURTIS: Becky did great, good for either North Carolina or Georgia.

BECKY: Yay. That was very fun.

THE BEACH BOYS: I'm gonna be round my vegetables. I'm gonna chow down my vegetables. I love you most of all. My favorite...

SAGAL: Now on to our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill in the blank questions as they can, each correct answer now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores?

KURTIS: Maz has two. Paula has two. Emmy - look out - has four.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)

SAGAL: Oh, my goodness. Emmy, well done.

SAGAL: All right. That means Maz and Paula are tied. And I will arbitrarily choose Maz to go first. Maz, fill in the blank. On Wednesday, the White House said it was considering an executive action to protect blank rights.

JOBRANI: To protect abortion rights.

SAGAL: On Tuesday, the EU proposed banning imports of Russian blank.

SAGAL: This week, the Federal Reserve announced a half-point interest rate hike to combat blank.

SAGAL: On Monday, workers at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island rejected a vote to blank.

SAGAL: This week, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell was allowed to return to Twitter and 4 hours later was blanked.

SAGAL: On Tuesday, Johnny Depp's lawyers rested their case in his defamation suit against blank.

SAGAL: According to the Labor Department, the number of people blanking their jobs set a record high in March.

JOBRANI: The blank - leaving their jobs.

SAGAL: Yeah. This week, a couple in Illinois renovating their house...

SAGAL: ...Found a 70-year-old blank in one of their walls.

SAGAL: No, a bag of perfectly preserved McDonald's French fries.

SAGAL: The couple was shocked when they demoed their bathroom wall and found a bag of McDonald's hidden inside with a perfectly preserved order of fries. They knew it had been in there since the late 1950s because the bag had McDonald's old mascot on it, and the toy in the Happy Meal was a pack of cigarettes.

SAGAL: Bill, how did Maz do on our quiz?

KURTIS: He did great - Seven right, 14 more points. He's in the lead.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)

SAGAL: OK. Paula, you're up next. Fill in the blank. On Wednesday, Donald Trump Jr. met with a committee investigating the attack on the blank.

SAGAL: On Monday, a study showed that 94% of California was suffering a blank.

SAGAL: This week, President Biden designated the New Mexico blanks a disaster.

SAGAL: On Thursday, Karine Jean-Pierre was named the new White House blank.

SAGAL: To celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, A&M Records announced they were reissuing blank.

SAGAL: No, the Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen." On Wednesday, the Department of Education forgave over 100,000 borrowers of their blanks.

SAGAL: This week, a couple in Florida...

SAGAL: ...Called 911 to report that an alligator had snuck into their home and was blanking.

POUNDSTONE: Cooking. It was cooking.

SAGAL: It was drinking all of their Diet Coke. The alligator had somehow made its way into the couple's garage...

SAGAL: ...And proceeded to help itself to the 36-pack of Diet Coke. This was actually the second house the gator had broken into, but the first one only had Diet Pepsi, so it just ate the family there instead.

POUNDSTONE: You would've thought it went for the Gatorade.

SAGAL: So, Bill, how did Paula do on our quiz?

KURTIS: She was right in there, five right for 10 more points, total of 12. But Maz may be uncatchable with the lead of 16.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)

SAGAL: All right. How many, then, though, does Emmy Blotnick need to catch him?

KURTIS: Six to tie, seven to win.

SAGAL: OK, Emmy, this is for the game. Fill in the blank. On Sunday, experts warned that the U.S. should prepare for a blank surge this summer.

SAGAL: This week, author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance won the GOP primary in blank.

SAGAL: It is, for a senate seat.

SAGAL: According to a new poll, blank's approval rating rose five points from February.

SAGAL: This week, a new art gallery solely devoted to NFTs was announced by blank.

BLOTNICK: Oh, no. Oh, no. Who likes NFTs this much? Elon Musk.

SAGAL: The Vatican. On Monday, the U.S. officially classified WNBA star blank as wrongfully detained in Russia.

SAGAL: Right. On Wednesday, Dolly Parton and Eminem were announced as inductees into the blank.

BLOTNICK: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

SAGAL: This week, we learned that volunteers in Maryland...

SAGAL: ...Had helped scientists develop a new vaccine by simply drinking a blank smoothie.

SAGAL: A dysentery smoothie. Scientists gave half the volunteers a vaccine, half of them a placebo, and then had all of them drink a dysentery smoothie, just like the one you get from Jamba Juice when their refrigerator is broken. Not only did they create the vaccine, but one of the volunteers lost enough weight to fit into Marilyn Monroe's dress at the Met Gala. Bill, did Emmy do well enough to win?

KURTIS: Well, she got five right, 10 more points, a total of 14, which means, with 16, Maz - Maz is this week's champion.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)

SAGAL: Now, panel, what will be next year's Met Gala theme? Emmy Blotnick.

BLOTNICK: It'll be a chili cook-off.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)

JOBRANI: Since this year's theme was the Gilded Age, when a handful of people got rich, next year's theme will be subprime loans, when a bunch of people got poor.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)

POUNDSTONE: It'll be the COVID years. Everyone will show up in sweat pants, if they wear pants at all.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)

KURTIS: Well, if that happens, we'll ask you about it on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

SAGAL: Thank you, Bill Kurtis. Thanks also to Emmy Blotnick, Maz Jobrani and Paula Poundstone. And thanks to all of you for listening. I'm Peter Sagal. We will see you next week.

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